When Do Employees Leave Their Job for Entrepreneurship?

Hyytinen AriMaliranta Mika

Scandinavian Journal of Economics (2008), Vol. 110, issue 1, pp. 1-22

Existing firms are argued to be an important source of new entrepreneurs. Yet, relatively little is known about the characteristics of firms that breed new entrepreneurs. We use a large linked employee–employer dataset to trace and characterize the types of firms which generate new entrepreneurs in Finland. We find that such transitions are rare and that smaller firms spawn new entrepreneurs more frequently than larger firms. We also find that firmsŽR&D intensity and, to a lesser extent, their productivity are negatively related to the probability that employees transit into entrepreneurship. These results are robust to controlling for a number of employee and employer attributes.

Publication info

Date
2008
Pages
22
Availability of print version
Language
English